


Cashmere

by setissma



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:05:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setissma/pseuds/setissma
Summary: If Danneel's honest, it starts and ends with a moving truck.





	

If Danneel's honest, it starts and ends with a moving truck.

At the start of the long, muggy summer before third grade, while Danneel's finishing up a truly excellent collage for the refrigerator and proving that she can read an entire Boxcar Children book by herself, an ambulance comes to the house next door in the middle of the night. The bright lights flashing across her bedroom wall wake her up, turning her row of protective stuffed animals red and blue. Her dad pulls the curtains back at her bedroom window to watch. "Let's get you a glass of water," he says, an _obvious_ distraction, but despite his best efforts, Danneel catches sight of the stretcher they pull out, a white blanket pulled up over the top.

The next morning, there are cars in the driveway, people Danneel's never seen before milling around. When her mother heads next door with a casserole dish of lasagna, Danneel peeks between the slats in the old back yard fence, crouched beneath the lilac bushes. Their neighbor _died_ , a heart attack or maybe a stroke, they won't know until the autopsy. Danneel doesn't know what an autopsy is. She's hoping to find out from the sentences around it, like Mr. Monroe taught them to do when they don't know a vocabulary word, but Rufus starts barking at the lilacs, giving away her position like a traitor. She has to give up, artfully staging a slip off the old tire swing when her mother's watching from the kitchen window to explain her muddy knees.

Danneel feels strange at dinner, because dead means _gone_ and their neighbor was nice. She gave whole candy bars at Halloween, not _pretzels_ or Mike'n'Ikes like all the other old people, and she never minded when Danneel had to sneak under the fence for a lost soccer ball or when Rufus escaped and chased rabbits in her yard.

At dinner, her dad pauses to squeeze her shoulder. "Margaret is in a better place now," he says, "and anyway, I think one of her sons is going to move in to the house. No mortgage payment. Maybe they'll have a little girl for you to play with."

"What's a mortgage?" Danneel says, and when her dad laughs and starts to explain about paying for houses, Danneel starts to forget about the woman next door.

The house sits empty through the long months of June and July, while Danneel goes to ballet practice and swimming lessons and skins her knees playing soccer in the park with her friends from school. Mostly, there's not much to notice. When Rufus wriggles under the fence for the rabbits, the grass is a little longer on the other side, and there aren't any fresh geraniums on the porch. Danneel's summer is sparklers in the backyard and delicious anticipation over her mom's promise to take her to the water park during the first week of August. She thinks about what sort of lunchbox she wants for the fall, maybe the Lisa Frank one she saw last time her mother took her to Target or maybe one with a special insulated pocket for her juiceboxes, and summer keeps going.

One morning in August, after the water park but before back to school shopping, Danneel wakes up to the _beep-beep-beep_ of a truck in reverse. By the time she climbs out of bed, men in brown uniforms are carrying boxes into the house. There are bikes and baseball bats, sofas and a set of bunk beds. Danneel catches sight of a clear tupperware bin with sheets with rocket ships on them. Although she's secretly always wanted rocket ship sheets, her finely honed detective skills suggest that it's probably a family with _boys_ moving in next door. She sighs a little as she gets dressed. She likes boys, mostly, but if it had been a girl, they could have played animal hospital with her stuffed animals and barbies, or made a secret fort in Danneel's treehouse, or gone to the swimming pool down the block together. Now her hopes are kind of dashed.

Her mother is watering the herbs in the window. "I'll have to take over a casserole once they get here. And maybe the kids will be your age, you never know."

"Yeah, but _boys_ ," Danneel says, with a sigh into her cheerios. She doesn't really understand why her mother starts to laugh.

Two days later, Rufus disappears under the fence. Danneel climbs over it, only to find a boy holding back a very large golden retriever. He's tall, with brown hair. He looks like he might be about her age.

Danneel grabs Rufus breathlessly, scooping him up into her arms. "Sorry. Your yard has a lot of rabbits. My dad keeps fixing the fence, but our dog likes to dig underneath."

"That's okay," the boy says. There's a long, awkward pause that makes Danneel's stomach feel kind of weird.

"My mom says you have a tree house," he says, finally. "Can I come over? I can bring some comics. And lemonade. The real kind, not the fake stuff."

"Superman?" Danneel says, a little suspicious. _Everyone_ has Superman comics.

The boy looks scornful. "Batman all the way."

Danneel figures that he's cool enough to hang out in her treehouse. "I can get my mom to give us some cookies," she decides. "You can bring your dog."

His name is Jared, and despite Danneel's reservations about his gender, it only takes four days for her to declare him her best friend. When they go back to school in the fall, they're in the same classroom. Jared kicks the first person who says something about a girl being friends with a boy. When he can't go to recess for three days, Danneel stays in the classroom with him and shows him all her favorite Boxcar books. Jared likes Goosebumps better, and after a while, Danneel decides she does too. They build a tent in his backyard out of his mom's old sheets and tell scary stories with a flashlight, Shadow and Rufus standing guard. That winter, they construct the world's largest snow fort, with _tunnels_. In the spring, Jared's dad teaches them how to catch bluegill out of the pond behind the school. Danneel paints over the _no boys allowed_ sign on her treehouse. It's perfect for three years, full of adventures and trading library books and war wounds, until a month comes when Danneel's dad spends all his time on the phone with a law firm in Louisiana. She's too young to understand what all the talk about offers and moving packages means, but she gets it when her mom deposits a stack of boxes outside her room. She starts packing their things, cool and efficient, her toys and books disappearing into cardboard because they're "on a strict timeline." Danneel runs away in the middle of the night with her stuffed dog and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but she only gets as far as Jared's. He makes room for her under the sheets and doesn't make fun of her.

"My mom says you can visit next summer," he says, full of a false confidence that Danneel's learning to associate with boys.

She still cries all the way to Louisiana.

The first couple of months are hard, but Danneel makes new friends in school, and her dad's job means they can have things they couldn't before. She gets a bigger room with a princess bed – although her mom still won't let her have rocket ship sheets – and when she asks for a kitten, he's in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, tiny and orange and perfect. They don't go back for the summer to visit. She cries for an evening, but her mother promises her horseback riding lessons and Danneel gets distracted. Eventually, a year becomes two and two becomes three. She stops thinking about her childhood best friend. She learns to drive and goes to prom and when Rufus finally passes away in his sleep and her parents decide to bring home a golden retriever from the pound, she doesn't remember that her neighbors used to own one. Really, she doesn't remember much about Jared at all.

In March of her senior year of college, as she heads home from spring break, Danneel has acceptance packages from four med schools, including her second choice. She's almost done with her thesis and as the plane lands, it's just one long push of work until graduation and a summer of lounging by the pool in the Louisiana heat. She's struggling with her carryon, trying to get it out of the overhead, when someone steps in behind her.

"Let me help you out with that," he says. When Danneel turns around to take her bag from him, she pauses with her hands halfway, because she _knows_ him.

He's a long way from ten years old, in slacks and a button down shirt with a very loose tie, so big he takes up most of the aisle, but he's still recognizable. Still familiar.

"Jared," Danneel says. It obviously takes him a minute to place her, but when he does, his whole face lights up like it's Christmas morning.

"Danneel," he says, laughing. "Holy shit."

He insists on carrying her bag to the baggage claim. Danneel pulls down the sleeves of her ragged Wellesley sweatshirt and wishes she'd put on makeup or brushed her hair or _something_ , because the truth is that Jared's – attractive. He's tall and broad-shouldered and put together, the kind of guy she'd probably avoid talking to at a party because he's out of her league. He's right there with her, though, running his mouth off a mile a minute about his family and college. He's at Georgetown, majoring in political science, and there's a Massachusetts senatorial candidate who's looking for recent graduates to work on the campaign.

"Two phone interviews already, and I guess they liked me enough to fly me out," Jared says, pulling a suitcase off the carousel. Danneel's proud of him.

"I was going to try to catch the 6:40 train," she says, with a smile. She figures he'll friend her on facebook and forget to send a Christmas card, but Jared laughs, charming and a little infectious.

"I honestly don't have anything to do tonight," he admits. "I was just going to hang out in my hotel room and watch a pay-per-view. Can I buy you dinner? They're covering everything, so we could take a cab."

Danneel can't think of a reason to say no, so she makes a brief stop in the airport bathroom to put on a little mascara while he finds a cab, and puts her bag in the back. Jared's warm in the cab, up close and just as animated as he was when she knew him before. It's a little strange, trying to fit together the kid who hauled her up a rope to the treehouse and the _man_ in front of her, but she decides that she still likes him. They go to an Italian place a couple of blocks from campus, splitting a pizza and an order of breadsticks. Jared teaches her how to shoot straw wrappers and overdoes it on the pepper flakes. He has to swipe her diet coke, laughing even as he chokes.

They walk back to her dorm, and when Jared suggests a movie, Danneel's surprised to find she wants the evening to keep going. She lets them into her room, glad she cleaned up before she left, and pulls a few beers out of her fridge as Jared looks through her DVDs. Three beers and half of the movie later, when Jared leans in, Danneel wants that, too. It goes fast, faster than she's expecting. She's made out with guys at parties and brought a couple of them up to her room, but she's never gotten further than taking her shirt off.

Still, when Jared says, "Do you want to –" Danneel finds herself leaning in for another kiss. She's not totally sure how they end up naked. Maybe she should _tell_ him that this is her first time, but when he goes for the emergency condom in her nightstand, she doesn't want to say no. She knows she should have a better reason, but she doesn't, except that he wants her and she thinks she wants him. It doesn't seem like the worst idea she's ever had, so she lets him. It sucks for a long minute, stupid and awkward and painful. Danneel's sort of expecting it to get better, but it really doesn't. Jared's _heavy_ , and she finds herself staring at the stupid glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, put up at the very beginning of the year in a fit of application anxiety. It's – boring and quite possibly the most awkward thing Danneel's ever done, in an embarrassingly intimate way, at least until Jared snaps his fingers in front of her face, a gesture that's so familiar Danneel has to laugh.

"Pretty sure you're not supposed to _actually_ lie back and stare at the ceiling," he says, mildly, and Danneel laughs again, in spite of herself.

"I'm not totally sure I'm enjoying this," she admits, too tipsy to go for the polite lie. Jared makes a face, the same face he made at ten when she refused to get her easter dress muddy or wouldn't go in the woods after dark.

"So _say_ something," he says, pulling back. Before Danneel can say anything, he's sliding down her body and nudging her thighs apart.

It's _more_ awkward, so much so that Danneel almost pushes him away. This is the part her friends never seem to talk about, but after a minute, Danneel finds it interesting enough to hold still, and then – well, it's obvious that Jared's mile a minute mouth is good at other things. He makes her come twice before he pushes inside her again. It's still awkward and a little painful, but at least she _wants_ him. They kiss through it, which makes it – easier, somehow. He thrusts into her in slow, warm strokes, and Danneel doesn't think she can, _again_ , but he changes the angle and works a hand between them to touch her. Her body gives in, even if she's thinking too hard about it, and he follows her over a couple minutes later, face pressed against her neck.

He's gone when she wakes up the next morning, with a scribbled note on her whiteboard and a Facebook friend request. Danneel waits a few days for a message, a phone call, smoke signals, _something_ , but it doesn't really materialize. Status updates suggest that Jared gets the job and that he's moving in June. Danneel sends in her acceptance to Emory and submits all the paperwork for graduation. It doesn't feel great, but she's not entirely sure she wants to count it as a mistake, either.

Five years later, Danneel's standing in a co-op in Iowa City, downing a bottle of water after a run and trying to decide whether she wants chicken or salmon for dinner. It's the end of July, sticky and miserable outside, and she's resisting the temptation to just order a goddamned pizza when someone reaches past her for the hamburger. She turns, and it's so random it's almost funny.

"Hey, Jared," she says, and he drops the hamburger back into the case and stares.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," he says, finally laughing. From the way he rubs the back of his neck, the small smile, she knows he's embarrassed. She doesn't know why he didn't call, but this far on the other side of things, she figures that she probably could have picked up the phone too.

"Maybe next time I'll be a little less sweaty," she agrees, with a smile.

"Do you live around here?" Jared says.

Danneel puts the chicken in her basket. "I just moved for residency about six weeks ago."

"I'm doing – uh, caucus work for Keller," Jared says. "We just got here two days ago. I found the box with the frying pans, so burgers it is."

Danneel objectively notices the _we_ , but she doesn't really have time to catalog it before an attractive man is heading out of the cereal aisle toward them.

"Making a friend, Jay?" he says, mildly.

"Actually, this is Danneel," Jared says. "We knew each other when we were kids."

Danneel feels like it'd be awkward to point out that she's simultaneously a childhood friend and an ex-one night stand.

"You didn't grow up around here, right?" he says.

Jared laughs. "Nope. It's a small world. Danneel, this is my partner, Jensen."

Danneel takes a second to figure out which way he means the word, but Jensen casually slides a hand into the back pocket of Jared's jeans. Danneel figures he doesn't mean business, and – well, it explains some things.

"You should come over for dinner sometime," Danneel offers, even though she's pretty sure they won't follow through.

Jensen holds out a hand for her to shake. "Nice to meet you."

A couple weeks later, Danneel's coming off of a rotation at the hospital, trying to wind down by doing dishes at two in the morning. When the doorbell rings, thinks she's imagining it, but the second time it goes off, she dries her hands and goes for the door, wondering. As far as Danneel knows, the only people who come to your door at two in the morning at the cops, but there aren't any lights. She opens her door with the chain still on, and undoes it when she sees Jared on the porch with a duffle bag, red-eyed and obviously a little unsteady on his feet.

"I am very sorry," Jared says, enunciating in a way that Danneel's pretty sure means he's drunk. "But I don't have my wallet and I shouldn't be driving and I really – don't know anyone else in town."

Danneel hasn't known Jared for almost twenty years. There are an awful lot of reasons she shouldn't let him in: he's drunk, he's nearly a stranger, it's two in the morning, she doesn't know the context. Still, there's something about him that's disarming, that makes it easy to swing open the door and guide him to the couch with a hand on his shoulder.

"How about a cup of coffee?" Danneel says.

Jared drinks half the cup before he says anything. "We got in a fight," he manages, finally. "We've had to move a lot, for my job, and he's been – mad, and we were drinking –"

"It's really late," Danneel says, softly. "Let me make up the couch for you."

Jared's either too tired or too drunk to protest, so Danneel finds clean sheets in a box she hasn't gotten around to unpacking and covers him with a quilt. As an afterthought, she finds his cell phone in his duffle – full of ties and swimsuits and a pair of dress shoes – and texts Jensen her address and a message letting him know Jared is safe, just in case. 

The next morning, Danneel wakes up to someone knocking on the back door. Her alarm clock reads a little past six. It's infinitely earlier than she wants to get up, but she pulls on a robe and goes to get the door.

"Hey," she says. "Want a cup of coffee? He's still asleep."

"I was just going to take him home," Jensen says, hands in his pockets, looking awkward.

"Let him sleep a little longer," Danneel says, with a smile, and brings the coffee out onto the back porch, where Jensen's sitting on the steps.

"I'm really sorry he's here," he says, his hands wrapped around the mug. "We've been fighting a lot lately, but I thought it was sleep on the couch fighting, not go to a stranger's at three in the morning fighting. He shouldn't have."

"It's honestly okay," Danneel says, taking a seat beside him. She figures he'll talk about it if he needs to.

"We met when he was in Boston, working this campaign, and I was finishing up my PhD. And he – you know, it was good, and then he had to go to North Carolina for this presidential thing. So we do the long distance thing for a while, and it fucking blows, and I promise him we won't do it again. But he's in one place for a campaign cycle, six months tops, and he has to pick up and move when they tell him to. And I just have to – drop it and leave. My friends, my cable contract, my _job_. And it sucks when he's traveling half the work and working late to teleconference with Washington every other day. I've got this doctorate in physics but my resume has so many gaps I can't find something serious. And how do you take a position knowing you're moving before the year's out?" He laughs, softly. "This isn't any different, I know Iowa doesn't have that many goddamn electoral votes. We got in this fight because he wants to buy this stupid dresser for our bedroom, like – two hundred pounds of antique tiger maple or whatever the hell kind of wood that he's going crazy over, and –" Jensen rubs a hand over his face. "I don't want to deal with moving it in January."

"Well, I'm stuck here, and I barely have any furniture," Danneel says, laughing softly. "Buy him the dresser and I'll buy it off you if you move. Even in January."

"I swung by the antique store on my way over," Jensen admits, laughing too. "But they weren't open yet. That's what happens when you're going to collect your boyfriend at six in the morning and spilling your life story to a total stranger."

Danneel offers a grin. In spite of herself, she kind of finds herself liking him. "We had a treehouse fort together at age eight. Friends for life."

"The way he tells it, you might as well have been Scout and Dill."

"I like it," Danneel says. "I should have grown up into a reclusive author."

"Jared isn't much like Truman Capote," Jensen points out. "Thank god."

"Probably a plus," Danneel says, and then smiles. "I should probably get back to bed before the coffee kicks in, I'm working tonight. But I'll let you in."

Jensen heads into the living room, and Danneel lingers long enough to see him kiss Jared awake, the way Jared's hand curls in Jensen's t-shirt as he wakes, holding tight with relief. Danneel's not jealous, exactly – she's tried boyfriends, but it never seems to work out, between night shifts and her general hatred of commitment. They're easy to watch together, though. It seems nice, to have someone you care enough about to fight this hard for. She falls asleep to the low murmur of their voices and Jensen's soft laughter.

A week later, she's cutting through the ER waiting room on her way to the cafeteria when she spots a familiar set of shoulders. Jared's holding a blood soaked hand towel to his palm. When she leans around the display of fake plastic plants, he brightens.

"Hey, Danneel," he says, in a tone Danneel recognizes as meaning he wants something. "You work here, don't you?"

Danneel laughs. "I'm an ob-gyn. So unless there's something seriously wrong with your cervix, I can't get you in. I don't even work in this half of the building."

" _Goddamn_ it," Jared says. "Jensen's at an interview. I was seriously hoping to be home and appropriately bandaged by the time he gets back."

"What time's he supposed to be home?" Danneel says.

Jared glances at the clock with a sigh. "Six."

It's five forty-five. "I think you might be out of luck on that front. But I've only got one patient and her labor isn't exactly going quickly, so feel free to tell him you're supervised."

"I'm seriously the worst cook ever," Jared says. "This is why salad shouldn't be considered a real food. I was trying to cut a tomato. Jen said I had to learn how to cook something _other_ than steak and baked potatoes."

Danneel laughs. "So let me guess, you made steak and potatoes with salad?"

"And I don't even _like_ salad," Jared points out, laughing. "Now I'm going to have to have stitches for a food I'm not even remotely interested in."

"He did buy you a dresser," Danneel points out, although she feels a little guilty when Jared rubs the back of his neck with his free hand.

"Sorry about the other night," he says. "And – well. That time in college."

"You were kind of an ass," Danneel agrees. "But I guess the super secret Black-Canary-and-Robin club bond kind of trumps ditching me after sex."

"I did not ditch you," Jared protests, then laughs. "Okay. I kind of ditched you. But I was twenty-two. Everyone makes really terrible decisions at twenty-two."

"Like sleeping with women?" she says.

Jared looks a little confused, then laughs. "I'm actually bi. Jensen is also, supposedly, bi, but according to him, he's never dated a woman. And he doesn't think Megan Fox is hot."

"She's terrifying," Danneel says, mildly, and squeezes Jared's shoulder when the nurse calls his name. "See you around? Hopefully not here?"

"Definitely," Jared says, with a smile, and stands up to head back.

A couple of days later, Danneel's showering after a particularly gory delivery when her text ringtone goes off. When she checks it, it's an unknown number, but it's recognizable as Jensen, who says, _dinner thursday? jareds in chicago but i want to thank u for the er thing_. Danneel texts back, _sure_ and gets an address and a time in response. It's probably a little weird to be hanging out with a guy she barely knows, but the only people Danneel knows in the entire city are other hospital staff. Frankly, Danneel's a little tired of mixing work and pleasure. She'd really like to be able to get through a meal _without_ discussing someone's caseload. 

She heads over around seven with a bottle of wine, and when she rings the bell, Jensen opens it. He has a streak of flour on one cheek, and he looks… a little frazzled.

"Hi," he says. "We're supposed to be having pizza, but the first batch of dough didn't… rise."

"Don't worry, I've got the chinese place on speed dial," Danneel says, laughing, and Jensen offers her a genuine smile, the first she's really seen from him.

"Thanks for coming over," he says. "Jared's been in Chicago for two days, and I'm officially out of boxes to unpack." He laughs. "I'm _incredibly_ bored."

"How'd the interview go?" Danneel says.

"It's just for a visiting spot," Jensen admits. "But they really liked the idea that they wouldn't have to pay any relocation expenses. And I'd be in charge of an elective in Classical Mechanics, which I think would be fun." He pauses. "Or torture, depending on the students."

The pizza – surprisingly – turns out, and Danneel has a better time than she's expecting. Jensen's charming and funny and wickedly good at chess, although they only get through half a game before she realizes her crushing defeat is a little inevitable. It's nice not to be at home in her empty house, and when Jared calls on Skype, she realizes she's happy to see him. She doesn't _know_ either of them in the way that she knows her friends from college and med school, all the details of their lives like where Jensen grew up and what brand of cough drops Jared likes, but it's comfortable.

Over the next couple of months, Jared travels all over the state working on polls and meeting with organizers. He's in Chicago every other weekend for meetings and strategizing. Danneel goes over for dinner a couple of nights a week – or for breakfast, if she gets stuck on graveyard. Sometimes they're both there, or just Jensen, and sometimes they grill at Danneel's or meet at the local pizza place after work. Jensen brings her leftovers when she works doubles, and Jared changes her oil and checks the tires. One night in November, in the dead rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Danneel delivers three babies and does an emergency c-sec on one shift. She manages to drive herself home, and she makes it to the couch, pulling a blanket down and covering herself before she crashes. The next morning, she wakes up in Jared's living room, with Jensen crouched over her with a cup of coffee.

"Long night?" he offers.

"I think you should probably start locking your front door," Danneel says, laughing.

Jensen teaches a night class on Tuesdays, and on weeks when Jared's in town, they curl up on her sofa and watch classic movies, _Some Like It Hot_ and _Casablanca_ and, at Jared's insistance, _Sixteen Candles_.

"Thanks," Jared says, one night when the credits roll.

Danneel considers. "You bought dinner."

"It's – easier," Jared says, finally. "We're less lonely, together."

"That doesn't make any sense," Danneel says, laughing, but it does, somehow. Jared and Jensen love each other, the kind of crazy, passionate love that comes along once in a lifetime, but they aren't any good at domesticity. They're stuck after the last kiss, the grey area past the happy ending, where business and mortgage payments have become more important than intimacy. She's the counterweight, the hospital corners and Sunday circular. She's learned how to smooth out the rough edges, to suggest a phone call when Jensen's starting to look frustrated and a run when Jared comes home angry.

It works, at least until it suddenly doesn't. On a Sunday afternoon in December, Jared's doing dishes in the kitchen while Jensen decorates their tree. He's hanging multicolored balls, and when one starts to slip off the branch, dangling precariously, Danneel puts down her book and goes to fix it. It's simple until she missteps, in too close to where Jensen's putting up another ball, and then they're in each other's space, Jensen's breath warm against her face. She knows it's going to happen before it does, so when his mouth comes down on hers, it's less a shock than an inevitability.

"Oh," Danneel says, a minute later.

"Danneel –" Jensen starts, but she really, _really_ can't.

"I need to go," she says.

" _Danneel_ -" Jensen says, again.

"I can't," she says, and gets out the door before she realizes she doesn't have her coat.

He doesn't follow her, but by the time she gets home, she has four or five missed calls – Jensen, Jared, Jensen, Jensen, Jared. She puts her cell phone on silent and leaves it in the guest room for good measure, trying to figure out what to do with herself. Stepping into someone else's relationship without noticing is uncharacteristically stupid, even for her. The only consolation is that if she's done something wrong, it's been in equal measure; she loves Jensen, but she doesn't really love Jared any less.

She cleans her bedroom closet, then scrubs the kitchen floor. It's almost dark when she hears weight on the steps of her front porch, and a firm knock.

"I'm going to stand out here until you open this," Jared says.

Danneel wants to pretend like she's not home, to turn off the lights and crouch behind the couch, but these days, she likes to think she's braver than that.

She finally pulls open the door. "It's a little cold out there."

"Good answer," Jared says, stepping inside.

"Coffee?" Danneel says.

"No, talking about it," Jared says, firmly. "Let's start with, Jensen kissed you."

"It didn't mean anything," Danneel starts. "It was – an accident."

"It wasn't," Jared says. "He meant it. Look –" Jared rubs a hand through his hair, a gesture Danneel's more familiar with on Jensen. "We can't make this thing work on our own. I love him more than I've ever loved anyone in my life, but we fight more than any couple I know. We once went three months without having sex, he was that angry with me. But it's – different, with you. _He's_ different, with you."

"I'm sorry," Danneel says. She doesn't really know what else to offer.

"I'm trying to say, we need you," Jared says. "We _both_ need you. And we talked about it, we want more than what we've got right now. So come home with me."

Danneel's not totally sure she's getting it. "Home?"

"Merry Christmas, have a threeway," Jared says, dryly.

"Yeah, okay," Danneel says, a little hoarsely.

She should probably consider longer, be more careful, but she's never been very good at saying no to Jared. She finds a second coat and slips into it, putting her hand into his on the walk back. She's nervous, up the front steps to their house, but Jensen meets them in the front hall. He and Jared have a conversation without saying anything at all, a trick Danneel wishes she knew, and Jensen steps in to help with her coat, thumbs warm beneath the collar as he slides it off.

"I'm sorry," Danneel says, and he goes to the trouble of hanging up the coat before he turns and cups her face with both hands.

"Do over," he suggests, with a smile, and when he leans in, she steps forward to meet him, leaning into his hands as they kiss.

Jared leans over Jensen, grinning. "My turn."

"You had a whole lot more than that in college," he says, laughing, but leans back against Jared. Danneel has to stand on her toes to kiss him over Jensen's shoulder. She wants to take it slowly, but with Jared's mouth over hers and Jensen standing between them, it's hard to remember why she cares. Jared deepens the kiss, licking into her mouth, and she jumps a little at Jensen's hands underneath her shirt, cool against her skin.

"I think –" Danneel says.

"Let's not talk about it," Jensen suggests, with a soft laugh, and elbows Jared back so he can kiss her again.

She loses her shirt on the way to the bedroom, stepping out of her jeans in the hallway as Jared and Jensen undress. By the time they hit the bed, they're naked, and Danneel hangs back for a moment, watching Jensen and Jared share warm, familiar kisses. Jared goes down hard onto the bed, laughing, and Jensen flops down beside him, looking over his shoulder expectantly.

"We don't really believe in thinking about sex, either," he says, dryly. Danneel laughs, finally feeling a little of the tension drain away, and stretches out beside them.

Jared's over her immediately, rubbing his face against her neck as he slides his hands up to cup her breasts, and Jensen kneels on the floor and pulls her to the edge of the bed.

" _Hey_ ," Danneel says, laughing, "no fair double teaming."

Jared grins, biting at the curve of her shoulder, and Jensen pushes her thighs apart. He licks over her pussy, broad strokes of his tongue that wind Danneel up without _doing_ anything about it. She has to nudge Jared away as warmth floods her body, laughing as she buries her hands in Jensen's hair to push him closer.

"Jared doesn't think you like women," she says, laughing breathlessly.

" _Apparently_ , you're hotter than Megan Fox," Jared says, dryly.

"Thin ice, Padalecki," Danneel murmurs, rubbing her thumb against the corner of Jensen's jaw as he rubs his lips against her clit, pushing his tongue up against her.

Between Jensen's mouth and Jared's hands all over her skin, it's only a few minutes before she's coming hard, still pushing Jensen against her.

"Well," she says, finally, laughing, and Jensen laughs too, fumbling in the bedside table.

"Jared bought condoms _just in case_ ," Jensen says, dryly.

Jared shoves him, until Danneel's caught in the middle as they're _messing_ with each other, kissing and pushing in equal measure.

" _Guys_ ," she says, finally, laughing, and Jared opens the condom and pinches off the tip, rolling it down onto Jensen with a kiss to the back of her neck.

"I'm going first tomorrow," he says, grinning, and Danneel hits him, laughing, and rolls over, wriggling back against Jensen to rub her ass up against him.

"It's like sleeping with sixteen year olds," Jensen says, but he settles his hands on her hips and pushes into her anyway, reaching down to spread her open for Jared, who gets a hand between them and starts rubbing her clit.

" _So_ fucking hot," Jared says, laughing against her mouth, pressing his fingers hard against her.

Danneel figures that turnabout is fair play, so she braces herself with one hand and wraps the other around Jared's cock, kissing him hard. It's sloppy, especially considering the fact that she's distracted by Jensen's slow thrusts, pushing up against her g-spot, but Jared doesn't seem to mind. Jensen pulls her back onto him harder, and Jared's panting into her mouth. He comes first, hips bucking up into Danneel's hand as she strokes him through it. His hand slows down against her as he fumbles, but it's still enough to get her off. She comes again a few seconds later, leaning her forehead against his shoulder.

"Come on, slow poke," Jared says, pulling Jensen down with a hand against the back of his neck, and Danneel hears Jensen's soft whine as he comes, shuddering hard.

Jared passes out surprisingly quickly after, with a sleepy murmur as he curls in against his back. Jensen laughs, leaning in for a long kiss.

"He wants to buy a house," he says, mildly. "Something about good medical facilities." He smiles. "Want to move in?"

Danneel considers for a moment. "Only if I don't have to move that damn dresser in January," she says, with a grin, and settles in between them.


End file.
